


you're familiar like my mirror years ago

by uchiha_s



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff with Angst, Modern AU, Short and sweet with a happy ending, arya x gendry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-18 04:48:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17574197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uchiha_s/pseuds/uchiha_s
Summary: It seems fitting to him, that he keep some sort of secret. His mother kept him a secret from his father. Gendry has always been honest but can a person who was born a secret ever really bare his soul to anyone? His is destined to remain forever locked away, as hidden and protected as an artifact sheltered by glass.--Arya has told him of how, growing up, Sansa was infamously bad at keeping secrets. But as he watches her visibly brighten at this personal fact, he thinks that she's perhaps become a damn good keeper of secrets. Maybe too good.--Sansa and Gendry keep themselves hidden from the world but they reveal themselves to each other three times. They don't mean to. They just can't quite help it.





	1. Act I: Museum

He's never been one for arty stuff. He is quick to remind people that he didn't go to university—particularly his highly educated girlfriend and her highly educated family and friends.

(Oh, they're always self-deprecating—Arya never _means_ to be a snob, and there hasn't been an unkind Stark yet—but there's a difference between those who attended Oxford and those who didn't, and Gendry's always known it.)

He doesn't care much for reading, and history classes always made his eyes cross, back in school. At pub quizzes he can answer the football questions, but everything else—history, art, politics—falls on Arya and his other friends.

And yet, on this grey October day Gendry is fidgeting in line for the security tent of the British Museum.

He's keenly aware of how thoroughly out of place he is here, as thoroughly as if he were in Harrod's, or a library, or a church. These spaces with rules and refinement have never suited him, yet there is a soaring within him as he is passed through security and alights the shallow stone steps. As soon as he walks through those heavy doors he feels a rush of belonging, a sense of home.

Every Saturday, for eight years, he's done this. It's his secret, a secret that none of his friends—with whom he drinks beer and cheers for West Ham and tells filthy jokes—would ever guess. It's a secret that he has kept from even his girlfriend, and since she also drinks beer and cheers for West Ham and tells filthy jokes, he knows he can never tell her, either. She was probably dragged here before when she was younger, and probably could tell him all about every exhibit, reluctantly and wryly, but nonetheless she would know all of it. That would make it even worse. He can't tell her.

Maybe it's not that he can't. Maybe it's that he just doesn't want to.

It seems fitting to him, that he keep some sort of secret. His mother kept him a secret from his father. Gendry has always been honest but can a person who was born a secret ever really bare his soul to anyone? His is destined to remain forever locked away, as hidden and protected as an artifact sheltered by glass.

It doesn't bother him, actually. Not anymore.

He never has any plan or agenda when he comes. It's eleven thirty in the morning, and in the main vestibule he is surrounded by prams and hollering, shrieking children; jabbering tourists with hats and maps; stylish retirees who attended Cambridge and own properties. In his West Ham jersey and boots and beanie, Gendry is alien in this place. With his scruff and his hat pulled low and his beat-up leather jacket he knows he looks suspicious, knows he looks more prepared to break and enter than weep with awe at the Bassai sculptures—though he often has to blink away a burning sensation when he looks at those sculptures in particular. They are poetry, carved by the human hand. He also likes the Elgin marbles, and his fingertips tingle with the urge to touch them whenever he stands before them, and his heart aches the way it does when he hears music, the way it used to when Arya smiled at him. He likes wandering through the exhibits, the history and people around him a blur. Perhaps this is how people feel in church, so close to god yet simultaneously so close to the people around them.

His favorite place, though, is past the restaurant, where families gather round too-small tables and spill over so that he is almost blocked from his objective. He hurries through the too-bright vestibule, with his cap pulled low, his heartbeat quickening, until he is in room fifty-two.

The Oxus Treasure is a collection of metalwork from the fourth century BC. Gold sculpture more intricate than any that he could ever do winks back at him from behind glass. He does metalwork, whenever he's not working at the gym, and without a doubt it's because he first saw the Oxus Treasure as a child. Not in person—it was on telly, in his fourth foster home, and he had stood before the screen, his mouth dry and his fingers hot and twitching. At twelve, he'd felt something entirely new, entirely different. His skin had prickled with a new sense of awareness, as though he were looking upon evidence of aliens or ghosts.

"...From the fourth century, BC, Sandra, and just _observe_ the incredible detail," the presenter was saying. The sound of his foster-mother cooking had faded; Gendry had sank to the moulding carpet, hugging his knees to his chest. Maybe it's because he lives so much in the present, or maybe it's because he lives so much in his own head. But that moment gripped him: he can still recall the sudden and disorienting realization that humans have always been humans; that beauty has always mattered and that long after he is nothing more than dust, the Oxus Treasure will still sit, untouched and preserved, behind glass, and some dumb bloke like him in a West Ham jersey will walk past it, dismissive of it, probably looking at his mobile. The weighty sense of eternity is almost suffocating but it's a wonderful way to go. The universe is ever-expanding; he is never more keenly aware of how miraculous and meaningless and random it all is—everything, everything—than when he looks at the Oxus Treasure.

He is safe, in this moment, as he stands before the collection of gold. He is alone, safe to ponder. A thousand thoughts flit through his mind and he watches them pass like leaves fluttering on the surface of a creek: he needs to buy milk; will he ever make anything that they put in a museum; he thought Arya seemed a little tense last night; things have been bad lately with her and he doesn't really know why; he's supposed to meet up with Jon and Sam for beers at the Elephant on Thursday... None of his thoughts really matter and he watches them dissolve before him.

He is safe.

And then:

"Gendry?"

* * *

Sansa's been on a museum kick.

She always keeps her New Years' resolutions, after all.

On this grey October morning, she treks through Bloomsbury, one of her favourite neighborhoods. She catches her reflection in the glass front of the Doubletree on Southampton Row, and beyond her pale, shadowed spectre she can see a scattering of tables with travelers crowded round them, preparing for afternoon tea. Something about it makes her feel lonely, so she walks a little faster, and breathes more easily when she isn't faced with all of that companionship.

The British Museum is one of the last on her list. She thought—planned—that it would take her longer to work through all of London's museums. She's put this one off; something about it overwhelms her, and as she approaches the stately building, she is struck by the line for the security tent snaking around and around.

But she's come this far, and she is determined to cross this one off the list. So she stands in line, blending in with all of the other young, affluent, well-dressed women, except for the fact that she is neither surrounded by friends nor pushing a sprawling, expensive pram. She busies herself with her mobile, and is relieved when she's through security and is released into the museum, and her aloneness is not so evident.

She wanders through the exhibits, and for a time, she is safe.

Her therapist, a very pleasant but sometimes odd bald man named Dr Varys, has surmised that her obsession with New Years' resolutions is all based on her obsession with turning herself into steel. If you're perfect, he observed last time in that hushed voice, then no one can ever hurt you again, can they?

Last year, she learned French. She's conversational; she went to Paris for a long weekend just to prove it, and went by herself. Her wardrobe was immaculate. She saw all of the important sights that the internet had told her to see. She had had a miserable time. She had sent postcards telling everyone she was madly in love with Paris.

Maybe Dr Varys is right, but if there isn't a goal to work towards, then what else is there? It's been twelve years since she was assaulted; she is absolutely over it. She is a goal-oriented person. An overachiever.

("Mmm. But you haven't dated, yet," Dr Varys had almost purred, gazing at her quixotically. She had considered telling him to fuck off, but instead she had clenched her teeth, smiled, and pointed out that a woman her age was more likely to be struck by lightning than get married. Why bother? All the good ones are gone, and the ones who are left are hardly worth the hassle. Why bother at all? She refuses to think of her sister's boyfriend, who gave her his window seat on a transatlantic flight a year ago and who never fails to buy milk on his way home. All the good ones are gone.)

The museum kick, the French, the pottery—absolutely none of it has to do with the assault. That was years ago. She's over it. She's always pursued her hobbies with more rigor than others pursue their careers. And since she has more time on her hands than most people—no boyfriend, no children, and a career that hardly demands the capacity of her intellect—she is perfectly capable of achieving mastery at nearly anything she sets her mind to.

So. Here she is. The British Museum.

Like the good girl she's always been— _but being good couldn't save her could it_ —she has done her homework. She strides through the museum with purpose, crossing sections off her list. She came, she saw, she conquered. Isn't that her story? She has conquered everything but her own shame, and it's this dark thought that accompanies her like a black dog as she strides through the museum cafe, so bright and airy and loud that it makes her eyes throb and teeth ache. She's got the Oxus Treasure on her list, and she read that it was quite important so she'll see it come hell or high water.

She checks her watch; it's not even noon yet. She had hoped this venture would take longer. Perhaps she'll while away the rest of her afternoon shopping. Her wardrobe makes other women want to cry, and other women's lives make her want to cry. It's a fair trade, probably. All the good ones are gone, anyway.

There's a man blocking her view of the Oxus Treasure, in black jeans and boots and a beanie, just staring. Probably on his phone. Maybe if she stands next to him, meaningfully, he'll move out of the way and she can observe this important collection. Maybe it will be the thing that finally takes her out of her own head; maybe it will be the thing that fixes her. She doubts it but she has hope, because this is her problem: she always has hope. Those hopes always get dashed, and so she hurts herself, over and over again, because she never quite becomes steel. She is soft, soft as flesh and just as vulnerable. It's not the assault; she's over that, she's _been_ over that.

As she approaches the glass case, she thinks that the real harm is everything that came after the assault: she kept waiting for something wonderful to happen that would negate it, that would make all the suffering worth it, and something wonderful never came. Her life never course-corrected into what it was supposed to be, filled with romance and beauty, and she doesn't know if it's her own fault or not. Why does she want the romance so badly, and why is it so hard for her when it is so effortless for others? She's dreamed of romance since she was a child, and is this maybe why she is the _one_ person that she knows whose life is so without romance? She gave up on the big white wedding and the car full of singing children, but she can't quite give up on the idea that there is someone out there for her and that it doesn't matter what happened to her twelve years ago. And somehow this is connected to why she is here, at the British Museum, looking at a pile of metal thousands of years old, and when she puts it that way in her head she realizes just how absurd it sounds—

"Gendry?"

She blurts it out before she can stop herself, and then it's too late. The tall man blocking her view of the Oxus Treasure turns to look at her in surprise, and it's Gendry indeed, her sister's boyfriend (all the good ones are gone), with whom she has never had anything in common, with whom conversation is utterly stilted and painful. His lovely blue eyes shock her, but she has shocked him, too, that much she can see. A flush creeps up her neck, and then they're staring at each other.

* * *

"Gendry?"

He startles, and then his girlfriend's sister—with whom he has nothing in common, with whom conversation is painful, yet the only person who has ever taken more than a forced, fleeting interest in his metalwork—is staring at him.

(She came to his first exhibition and had breathed in delight and wonder at his work. He told himself, reminded himself, that Sansa was known for her excellent acting.)

Sansa is, as always, as breathtaking and polished as if she has stepped off the face of one of those glossy magazines. In this cramped exhibit gallery of damp coats and whinging children and hassled tour guides, she is a revelation, and as always he feels guilty for thinking it. It would kill Arya.

Of _course_ Sansa's at the British Museum; of _course_ she goes to museums on Saturdays. Utterly composed as always in a fancy cornflower blue coat and shoes that make loud clacks on the floor, her hair gleaming and her teeth white, she smiles at him, but little things give away her anxiety: she's clutching her purse strap so that one arm is folded across her chest; there's a flush creeping up her neck; she occasionally averts her eyes quickly.

It comes to him suddenly: she doesn't want anyone else to know she's here either. 

He swallows. Something about her has always broken his heart and he doesn't really know why.

Their souls are briefly bared to each other under bright lights.

"So... You like the ..." he pauses, self-conscious, "...Achaemenid empire?"

Sansa's smile is a grimace.

"Do you?" she parries wryly.

Gendry looks back at the Oxus Treasure, then to Sansa again. She is watching him anxiously. Arya worries about Sansa; Gendry has spent years hearing about Sansa's perfectionism, her obsessive decorating, her all-consuming hobbies that she pursues with Olympic gusto. But his only real exposure to her, his own opinion of her, is from the times she's been coaxed out to the pub and orders white wine when everyone else is drinking beer, and from the times she comes to his exhibitions—Arya always unhappily points out that _of course_ Sansa always comes, just as Sansa always remembers to send thank-you notes and always flosses and never has crumbs ground into the carpeting of her car.

Oh, and she's always sent him a birthday card. She sends them to everyone. Does she keep a stack of generic ones, or does she pick them out for each birthday? Last year, his had a minimalist drawing of a hammer on the front, a clumsy but appreciated reference to how often he is called upon to fix friends' flats. She must pick them out individually. This thought makes his chest ache, takes the breath out of him, like he's been hit in the gut. 

He just shrugs.

"I mean. I just think it looks cool," he admits, and then he thinks of how he had opened the small, heavy cream stock envelope and had simultaneously realized it was Sansa's yearly birthday card, just on time. He'd not been sent any others. She's been kind to him, so he feels he owes her, which is why he fesses up so easily: "I come here every Saturday. Don't tell Arya."

Arya has told him of how, growing up, Sansa was infamously bad at keeping secrets. But as he watches her visibly brighten at this personal fact, he thinks that she's perhaps become a damn good keeper of secrets. Maybe too good.

"I won't," she promises, and holds out her pinky. He wants to laugh, but he doesn't, and they solemnly link pinky fingers. "Don't laugh, but my New Years' resolution was to see every museum in London."

He laughs anyway.

"God, that sounds horrible."

They laugh, and then they stop, and then the silence is aching. He owes her but he has no idea of how to repay her for the birthday cards, for the times she has always, always shown up to his exhibitions. 

"Anyway," she says, tucking hair behind her ear and looking away again, her face flushed, "um, I guess I'll see you at the next pub night! Unless you have a show coming up that I've not been told about," she adds, her scolding tone almost theatrical. 

Gendry bites his lip. 

"Uh, no, no shows," he reassures her. "Yeah, um, see you then." 

"Right. Bye." 

She leaves him there before the Oxus Treasure. Gendry watches her go, and feels guilty for admiring the way her hair turns almost bright gold in the light. 

Just another thing he won't (maybe can't) tell Arya. 

* * *

She almost doesn't go to the pub night, because she isn't sure she can ever face Gendry again. _Oh my god why did I just run away like a complete nutter did I seriously do that ugh just kill me but seriously did I actually literally run away from him—_ the horror continues, and Sansa spends hours fussing over her outfit, feeling like a teenager, foolish and all at odds with herself and with everyone. She is just getting ready to send a text to her cousin Jon to tell him she's sick and can't make the pub night after all—half the time he begs off from these nights out; he'll understand—when her mobile vibrates. It's from Arya. 

_omg please get here ASAP because this is TORTURE_

Her heart sinks. Sansa flicks her gaze to her brass-framed mirror, a floor-length find from Anthropologie that she spent weeks obsessing over. She obsesses over her decor the way other women obsess over their children's schooling. The blue silk top is  _fine,_ and no one's looking anyway, least of all Gendry. She is being ridiculous. No top is going to suddenly magically erase that humiliating encounter in the British museum. No piece of jewelry, no pair of jeans can possibly make things un-awkward. 

 _What's torture? What's happened?_ she replies quickly. Almost immediately, Arya texts back.

_val sacked jon and edd keeps making it worse and then gendry laughed because of course he did and now its tense AF okay_

Sansa reassures her sister that she will be there—she takes pride on maintaining her friendship with Arya now that they're adults and that's more important than a moment of embarrassment. Maybe Gendry already forgot, anyway. And why the hell is she making such a big damn deal about this? She's gotten ridiculous.

She reaches for her cornflower blue coat, then stops herself, her face flaming. She picks a stone-coloured trench instead. No need to remind him of it nonverbally, at any rate. 

They're meeting at the Hereford Arms in Kensington; it's a convenient mid-point for everyone. The crowd has spilled out onto the sidewalk, penned in loosely by velvet rope, and Sansa pauses, takes a deep breath, and forces herself to just go inside. 

She sees Arya first. They've found a spot in the back of the pub. Jon is seated, trying to wrench his best friend Sam's arm off of him. Gendry stops laughing mid-laugh as, across the crowded pub, their eyes meet, and she briefly forgets that anything else exists. She cannot look away though she knows she must. 

Her heart is in her throat, and she feels like a fool, but then she feels, overwhelmingly, like a traitor. A selfish, pathetic traitor. It happens when Arya laughs and punches Gendry, then follows his gaze and waves at Sansa brightly.  _All the good ones are gone,_ she reminds herself. Then Gendry isn't looking at her anymore, and she hates herself for the disappointment. 

* * *

The evening passes in a blur. From here, Gendry keeps thinking he can smell her perfume. So he focuses on Arya; he ignores Sansa completely. She's teasing Jon about his ex-girlfriend anyway, breaking up the maudlin tension formed by Edd's depressing commentary and Sam's overly-sympathetic noises, which only serve to push Jon into an even worse mood than he usually is. She suffuses the table with light, and he turns away from that light defiantly. He teases Arya, makes her blush and then yell at him in outrage for making her blush. He pretends that Sansa does not exist, pretends that they've never run into each other in the British Museum. He can almost forget that she is there. 

But he should have been watching; he didn't know she'd gotten up to use the loo, and then he gets up, and realizes too late that she's not at the table. He has no choice but to go toward the loos anyway. He tells himself it's unlikely that they'll actually pass each other, that women always take forever in the loo. 

The hall with the loos is narrow and dark, barely any lighting and barely any room, and Sansa is just leaving the ladies' and they see each other too late. 

"Um, hey," they each bluster quickly at the same time. They look away from each other and attempt to push past, but it's too narrow and his arm hits her soft breast. "Oh, god, sorry," he stammers, and she lets out something like a laugh, a soft rush against his skin, and he doesn't know what in  _hell_ possesses him but he looks back at her and their eyes meet for one pounding searing perfect moment—

"Forget it," she says in a rush, and she turns away from him, heels clacking rapidly as she hastens away from him. His blood is pounding in his ears. He must be losing his mind. Is he really the sort of man who would—no, he won't finish the thought, because he sure as hell  _isn't._  

So Gendry goes into the loo and he splashes cold water on his face and he vows that, no matter what it takes, he will be normal around Sansa. 

He  _will_ be. 

Really. 

He will. 

 


	2. Act II: Mini Cooper

Seven months later, Robb and Margaery are getting engaged.

The extended Stark clan is all gathering at the Stark family home in picturesque Harrogate for a party where Robb will "surprise" Margaery (she picked out the ring; no one will be surprised) by going down on one knee before the entire family and asking her to marry him. There will be a party, with champagne and laughter.

Gendry is conflicted. He loves the Starks, and he is eager to have a chance to stand outside on the Stark's magnificent lawn, drink excellent beer, and talk football with Ned, Robb, Theon, and Jon. He has been with Arya for so long that they have become his family, and he looks forward to the moments where he gets to be within that family and pretend they are truly his.

And yet he cannot forget that it will require a very long train ride with Arya. And things haven't exactly improved.

If anything, things have gotten worse.

Much worse.

But he decides to be an optimist. Maybe the time with her family, and the train ride up to Harrogate, will fix the tension between them: the tension that has been lurking for over a year now. Maybe he shouldn't be such a pessimist. Maybe things will work themselves out.

Over the course of a week he talks himself into it, or at least, he tries to. They'll take the train up to Harrogate together on Thursday night (he tries to imagine them cuddled together and watching the countryside fly by, the discomfort between them magically dissolved) and wake up in Arya's childhood bed and be ready to be bossed around by Catelyn on Friday morning as the family prepares for this party.

And then he learns that he has to work on Thursday night. He won't be able to leave until Friday afternoon.

He breaks the news to Arya as they're making dinner together. They haven't done this in months, and now the air of domestic coziness and gaiety is forced. She's put music on. They might have sex later tonight. It's been a long time.

Things are at such a delicate balance between them that he is almost afraid to break the news, and then he decides he is being ridiculous. Arya is not some shrew; she is his longtime girlfriend ( _partner_ , she calls him, and between that and everything else about Arya, people are invariably surprised that he is male and it never fails to amuse him) and he shouldn't villanize her like this just because things have been tense. The chasm between them is as much his fault as it is hers.

Still, he cannot help but sag with relief that they won't be taking the train together. When they're around others—pub nights and family gatherings and group dinners—it's fine. It's when they're alone, and there's no one to perform for and nothing to distract them, that it's bad. He now feels foolish for having thought a train ride would magically fix things between them.

"Oh, Sans has to go up Friday afternoon. Work thing. Just go with her, she's driving up," Arya says, oblivious to how these words shock him. She's opening a bottle of wine with her Bruce Lee opener, her hair wild, wearing one of his tee shirts. Gendry prides himself on how he does not stop cutting up the cucumber, how he does nothing to reveal the kind of effect her words have on him. In general, he prides himself on how well he hides the effect that any mention of her sister has on him. "She's a surprisingly good driver...but she makes every drive into, like, a goddamn road-trip, so be prepared for trail mix and girl talk."

He doesn't say anything, at first, after fighting that initial, pathetic impulse to ask her to keep talking about Sansa. He does not argue against this plan. If he fights Arya on this, she will double down. Ten years together has taught him this about her.

"Good idea," he says vaguely, planning on checking the train schedule and finding a way around this. But when he glances over his shoulder, Arya already has her mobile out, as she pours them both wine with her other hand.

"Hey, Sans," she says, and Gendry stifles an oath.

Mother _fuck_ er.

He chops the cucumber as loud as he can. Over the last seven months, he has (basically) kept his promise to behave normally around Sansa, but it's not like it's been that hard: their interactions have been limited to pub nights where he more or less pretends she does not exist. She sent him a birthday card, of course, so he sent her a for-no-reason card back, and of course he has agonized over that _stupid_ card endlessly since then.

(He found it in Liberty. Arya had mentioned it was Sansa's favorite place in perhaps the entire world—what with the Tudor-style building planted right among all that modernity, the shelves and shelves of printed fabrics, the absurd, frothy couture, the jewelry, the candles—and so he ventured in for the first and (hopefully) last time two months ago, on the first truly sunny day of the year. Maybe the sunlight had made him drunk; he had been, on that particular day, unequal to stifling his private curiosity about Sansa and all of the things that make her tick.

He had stumbled in through the door on the corner, and found himself in the cramped stationery section, face-to-face with a bespectacled woman holding a large, stuffed flamingo with all of the gravitas that one might hold shopping bags. 'Sorry,' he'd muttered to the flamingo.

He had found the card immediately: it was a plain card with nothing on it but a line-drawing of a llama, with pink glitter for fur. It was blank inside. When he had picked it up to examine it, he'd got pink glitter on his jumper.

He had written, ' _thanks for the cards. Thought of you. x Gendry_ ' inside, and had sent it before he could stop himself, in a burst of goodwill, buoyed by the thought of the annual birthday card on his and Arya's refrigerator.

He has agonized about that goddamn card since.

Was it weird? Did she find it weird? He hasn't seen her since, so there hasn't been a way to bring it up, a way to give it context, a way to smooth it out.

...But seriously, was it weird? Now he's thinking about that stupid card again. God, a goddamn llama of all things. It's not that llamas make him think of her; he feels curiously hassled as though there's a spotlight in his face and he's being interrogated about his choices. It's just that it was a card, and it had pink glitter on it... Oh, it's hopeless.

_Why_ did he even send it?

...Was it weird?

People send cards. That's why they sell blank cards; sometimes people send cards for no reason and it's completely normal.

Did she think it was funny?

...Did she think it was weird?

But it _wasn't_ weird. If she thought it was weird, then she's weird, because he did it for normal reasons—

—Okay, no, he didn't.)

"Okay, it's all taken care of. You'll meet her at her flat at five on Friday," Arya is saying, bringing him back to the present moment, away from his active cringing. She sets the stemless wineglass, frosted with R2D2, in front of him. "What," she demands. "You look annoyed."

"Locked in a car," he begins, not looking at her as he dumps the cucumbers into a bowl, "for over _four hours_ with your sister. Sansa and I have _literally_ nothing to talk about. It's going to be agony. For both of us."

"It doesn't matter; Sansa is like Robb. She can and will talk to anyone about literally anything. Remember how she talked your ear off at your last exhibition about why 'Legally Blonde' is a feminist movie? Stop whining. You don't even have to listen; she will happily talk to a wall."

For a moment, there's humor in the air and it feels like the old days, when they were always laughing, and he is flooded with relief. But suddenly they are looking at each other now, really _looking_ at each other, and the mock-playfulness dissolves, water through fingers. Arya looks as tired as he feels.

"You're right. It's not a big deal," he says now, and they turn away from each other. "Thanks for setting that up."

Arya goes to the stove as he pushes down an unexpected burst of fury. She's always forcing him into things; she always thinks she knows what's best for him—

"You're mad," she says, her back to him still. Gendry's eyes throb. "And I know why."

He cannot breathe.

He must be cautious.

He thinks of all of the times she has seen him with Sansa; does she know? This secret feels suddenly completely out of control; a secret that once seemed so manageable and so silly now is ballooning beyond his grasp, swelling and rising and threatening to burst. He thinks of that night they brushed past each other in the pub; he thinks of all the nights since then, where they so carefully do not meet each other's eyes, as though it has been agreed upon—no, that's not right. That implies there's something on Sansa's side of this, too, and there _can't_ be. It's just him, being stupid—and yet the idea that Sansa too might be hiding something gives him shameful, pathetic hope, and he despises himself for his secrets and his lies.

Did she find out about the card? That is the only concrete thing he has done. That is the only thing she can accuse him of. He is drumming up an explanation in his head when she continues. "I know you think we should be married," Arya says, so miserably. "And now we're going to Robb and Margaery's engagement party, and..."

This is an old path; they trod it every few years, and always come back to the start, like stupid racehorses on a stupid track. The fastest one wins but you still end up in the same spot all the same.

Gendry hates the relief that fills him like water in a balloon, simultaneously soothing and weighing him down.

She doesn't know, then. 

At least, probably not.

"It doesn't matter to me anymore, I told you. I get why you think it's stupid."

Arya glances back at him, over her shoulder, and their eyes meet across the kitchen for one blistering moment. They are naked to each other; he does not have time to hide the truth: that he wants to be married, that he has always wanted to be married, and that to not be married feels like he is just like his father, whoever that irresponsible and cavalier man was. Her eyes almost look wet, though Arya never cries. "Seriously," he adds, "it doesn't matter to me. And I'm not mad. I'm just tired."

Arya turns away from him.

"Y-yeah," she says, her voice suspiciously thick, "me too. I'm tired, too."

* * *

Gendry is due to arrive at Sansa's flat at five that Friday. At four fifty-five he is walking through Marylebone with his overnight bag slung over his shoulder and, as a thank-you for driving him, a box of lemon squares from a prissy bakery in Chelsea. These lemon squares, from this bakery, are apparently Sansa's favorite. He did not meet Arya's eyes when he asked what he might give Sansa as a thank-you, and Arya did not meet his eyes when she replied, and in that moment the chasm between them only yawned further.

The streets gleam gold in the evening sun, and Gendry weaves his way through the crowded sidewalks. He has been dreading this—the awkwardness, the sudden and profound distillation of all that is wrong about how he sees Sansa, and all of the ways in which he is so inadequate socially—but it's hard to be filled with dread on a golden evening like this, so he lets it go. Sansa probably does not want to do this either, but she has accepted the request with grace, so he shall also behave with grace—whatever the fuck that means.

Thus he finds himself in front of Sansa's front door, which has been painted a periwinkle blue and is flanked by tidy topiaries. He's two minutes early, but he knocks anyway.

The door opens and there is Sansa beaming at him, dressed in sleek jeans and a tailored blazer, gleaming hair swinging with her movements tantalizingly. She must have come straight from work. He braves the eye-contact and she does too, and he feels like a fool for ever thinking that she, too, has been hiding anything. Sansa does not have feelings for him; Sansa is not remotely attracted to him. After all, why would she be?

(He is so pathetic; he can hardly stand to be in his own skin. He wishes he could shudder out of himself, shed his flaws like a snake, and slither away and forget all of his many private sins.)

(So he cracks a slight smile and mentally smacks himself, and he moves on. He will not be this sort of man; he will be the man he has always intended to be. He will. He _will_.)

"Come in, just give me a moment—I'm lucky I packed everything last night, because a client held me up and I only just got home," Sansa blusters, showing him in. He is hit with a burst of her perfume, making him think of all the pub nights that he's spent trying to pretend she doesn't exist. An elegant brown suitcase waits by the front door. On the bench next to it there are glass containers of baked goods, neatly packed, and two china-blue thermoses.

The flat looks like something from a magazine. As with everything Sansa does, it is immaculately done, every last element controlled to perfection. It hardly looks like anyone can live here. Sansa's heels clack on the checkered floor as she hurries down the hall and disappears into a room.

Gendry stands awkwardly in the foyer before deciding to poke his head into the gleaming kitchen. Expensive copper pots hang on display, and there are light blue flowers on the marble countertop.

But what catches his eye is on the refrigerator: his card is pinned there by a fox-shaped magnet. He presses his lips together to stop himself from smiling, but is distracted when he hears a gasp of horror.

"Alright?" he calls, but hears no response. It feels dangerous, like yet another betrayal, to take another step further into Sansa's home...but he finds himself shrugging off his bag, leaving the box of baked goods on the bench, and venturing down the narrow hall.

It's not a bedroom, Gendry quickly learns to his immense relief. It's a sewing room, and it's the only place in the flat that does not look styled to perfection. He immediately feels more comfortable here. Sansa is flushed, looking hassled.

"I cannot believe I almost forgot this, and it's the most important thing," she explains. She is delicately pulling a dress off a dressform, a dress as light and airy as a confection. 

"Let me help," Gendry offers, and he goes to help her lift the dress off the form in a rustle of girly fabrics. It reminds him a bit of ballerinas, he thinks, as their hands brush. They each pull back sharply as though galvanized, but each course-correct—or is he imagining it? Is he turning normal interactions into loaded ones, just because he _wants_ them to be loaded?

Is he really going to be this kind of man?

"It's for Margaery. She asked me months ago to make her dress for the engagement party, back when they decided to go ahead with it," Sansa explains.

"It's ...awesome," Gendry says awkwardly. The room seems too small. He feels Sansa's eyes on him as he examines the dress more closely. He cannot help it; as a fellow artist (though he does not technically classify himself as an artist) and as someone who did not know that Sansa could do this, he finds himself unable to stop himself from taking a closer look. The dress is light blue, and covered all over in intricate embroidery that glints subtly in the light. It is intricate; it is art, even he can see that, even if he knows nothing about dresses. "Did you do this by hand, or...?"

"Yeah, by hand," Sansa admits, clearly embarrassed, tucking her hair behind her ear.

"The detail is really cool. I've never been good with details," he admits now, letting go of the dress and finally meeting her eyes. They each quickly look away. "I'm good with the big picture but the details is where I mess up." He pauses, only now realizing the awkward weight of his words. "With my metalwork, I mean."

"I'm the opposite. I knew exactly what I wanted to embroider but actually getting the dress design to look right was the hardest bit."

She laughs, breathless, in the silence of this sewing room. "And I guess it's a metaphor for my life, too," she jokes, and Gendry forces a laugh if only to save her from any embarrassment. "Anyway!" she says wildly, "let me get this into a garment bag and we can be on our way."

* * *

She _cannot deal_ with Gendry being here, in her sewing room. It feels like he has read her diary, or glimpsed her laundry pile. She has spent the last several months trying to pretend he doesn't exist, trying to ignore the way that looking at him makes her chest squeeze painfully tight, makes every pub night seem both filled with light and sour with pain, trying to ignore the fact that she wants him to slam her against the wall and kiss her every time she sees him. 

(He sent her a card with a llama on it, and no explanation, and she does not know where to even _begin_ with that one.)

(Also, for fuck's sake, a man's got no right to be that beautiful. Those eyes. _God_. If it weren't for the eyes, she might have a goddamn chance.)

(Oh, and one more thing: if he hadn't looked at the dress like _that_ , like he really meant the compliment, like he genuinely thought the detail was cool—if he hadn't done that...)

Every move is awkward. Sansa once prided herself on being graceful but today she has all of the grace of a duck. She can barely get Margaery's dress into the pink garment bag—it's a Kate Spade garment bag, because Margaery deserves pink—and Gendry rushes forward to help her, his hands capable and sure. Standing beside each other, elbows brushing, she is reminded of how much broader and taller he is: few men are taller than her when she's wearing heels, and for some reason it changes the power balance. Isn't that stupid? Yet it's true. She hardly ever feels delicate but right now she feels downright petite.

(On the last pub night that they both were at, it was unseasonably warm, and he was wearing a white tee shirt—it had some stupid skater logo on the front, and it was old because she noticed a few tiny holes on the collar and along the hem—and it had draped so beautifully along the planes of his back that her mouth had gone dry, and she had felt like a ridiculous, desperate adolescent girl being confronted with the appeal of masculinity for the first time. Like that moment when the cute boys in the boy band are suddenly no longer appealing, and what you realize you  _need_ is rough stubble and wild hair and a deep voice, and you don't know how to feel about it; you don't know how to leave the boy bands behind. It was like that. And now she's thinking about it again, thinking of how his back looked in that stupid white tee shirt, as he stands here before her, probably thinking she has lost her mind.)

"Sorry," she stammers, turning away from him and holding the garment bag. "I'm out of sorts today, for some reason."

"No worries," he says lightly, following her out of the sewing room.

Her car, a minty-blue mini cooper, is parked out front, and Gendry helps her load their things into the boot.

"I made coffee; it's in the thermoses," she explains as they each get in.

"Thanks. Oh, I brought these—Arya said you like them," Gendry says after closing the passenger door. When he moves, she is hit with a burst of his scent: laundry detergent and musk and leather. Sansa does not look at him, but focuses on the patterned blue box.

"Oh, that's so sweet of you! I do love them; they're my favorite, actually," she says. There's nowhere safe to put them, so Gendry leaves them on his lap. "Um, feel free to put music on or whatever. I have an aux cable," she says, holding up a rose-gold cable for him, and she hears him snort. "What?"

She begins pulling out into the street as Gendry takes the cord from her.

"Everything you own is so... _girly_ ," he observes with a laugh, plugging his mobile in. "And...I dunno...fancy. You don't just have an aux cable; you have a _pretty_ aux cable."

"Well, I like things to be pretty," she admits. Old-school rap comes on, and Gendry hastens to adjust the volume. "No death metal?" He is known for listening to raging, shrieking death metal as he works in his shop, works tirelessly on his designs. Arya has described him working shirtless and sweaty and intent, and Sansa tries weakly to not think of that. 

"Nah. I made a playlist," Gendry replies, "for the drive."

She thinks of the box of lemon squares, of the card with the glittering pink llama pinned to her refrigerator, and a lump forms in her throat. This feeling is at odds with the inexplicable and embarrassing horniness of seconds before, and somehow this is much, much harder to just box away. 

She has missed these subtle signs of caring; she is suddenly, overwhelmingly confronted with the fact that in all of her current friendships, she is the one who gives, endlessly, and rarely gets in return.

They pull onto the A1, and for a long time, there is nothing but music. Old-school rap transitions to the Beatles as the road before them turns bright gold in the sunset. Up ahead, she can see rain. Sansa assumes that she will be the one driving the conversation (she is always the one who talks too much) but in fact it is Gendry who first speaks. He clears his throat. "So," he begins, almost self-consciously, "did you keep your New Year's resolution?"

He remembers.

Sansa cannot help but smile, even as her chest tightens and burns. 

"Yes, I did," she admits. "Are you still going to the British Museum every weekend?"

"Every weekend," Gendry admits almost slyly. "A ritual. S'pose it's like yoga or some new-age meditation crap, isn't it?" They laugh briefly, and he forges onward, surprising her again. "What, um, is this year's resolution?" 

"Marathon training. I'm up to thirteen miles now, but I'm still slow."

"You pick the most brutal things," Gendry marvels. "It's like you're trying to punish yourself or something."

_It's like you're trying to punish yourself or something._

This innocent remark is shattering. Sansa grips the wheels with both hands and tries to laugh but finds she cannot.

"Th-that's a ridiculous thing to say," she counters. She does not look at Gendry. The world darkens around them as the sun begins to disappear. "I'm improving myself, is all."

"Sorry. Didn't mean any offense," Gendry replies, and a stiff silence stretches, for nearly half an hour. The Beatles fade away, to be replaced by the Kinks, and their joyful jangle is in such strict counterpoint to the tension in this tiny car that it is nearly comedic, except it's not funny at all.

_It's like you're trying to punish yourself or something._

She clenches her teeth. She feels naked; she wishes Gendry were not here in the car. She recognizes she is overreacting, and recognizes that Gendry evidently turns her into a teenage girl, all awkward limbs and dewy eyes and absurd, wild emotions. She is angry and ashamed; as angry and ashamed as she is when she leaves Dr Varys' office, except that this is far, far more shattering. "What about the dress?" Gendry asks, softly.

It's almost a non-sequitur except she can't possibly pretend she has not been ruminating on his remark for the last half hour; her anger is too obvious.

"What about it?" she forces some levity and some patience into her voice. A peace offering; an apology.

"I mean, I didn't know you could sew. That's a real dress, is what I mean." She hears him swallow. "I just—like, why isn't _that_ your New Year's resolution, to make that your life? To make more of those dresses?"

"It was just a one-off," Sansa counters. "I can't make _dresses_  into my life." She pauses. "And I could say the same to you. Why not make your art your life?"

There is something adversarial in her tone. The sky is dark now, and fat rain drops hit the windshield with the force of hail.

"I'm trying," Gendry replies, unoffended, and then she remembers he has been dating Arya, the most adversarial person she knows, for ten years now (not that she forgot that he belongs to someone else; _all the good ones are gone_ ), and that it will take more than a rude tone to upset Gendry. "But you've actually got a shot. People wear dresses, they need them. No one needs metal sculpture," he adds with a laugh. "Oh, fuck, this rain's bad."

It is bad. It's a downpour, and it's too dark. Sansa turns on her high beams but even that does not help; it just seems to illuminate the downpour but not the road before them.

"I'm just going to pull over," she says, and then they're stopped on the side of the road. Dark hills stretch to her right; they are well into the countryside now. The rain is so loud that it's shattering. "I'll take a lemon square now," she adds, risking a glance at Gendry. It is another peace offering, a way of showing that she regrets overreacting. Gendry opens the box and hands her one perfect, pink-paper-wrapped lemon square. "Ugh, it's almost too beautiful to eat," she sighs.

"Uh, no, it isn't," he scoffs. "If you don't eat it, I will."

For a while they sit there, eating lemon squares and drinking coffee and listening to the rain. "Where'd you get the idea for the dress?" Gendry asks.

They look at each other. In the darkness his eyes look almost navy. It's such a deep, rich navy that she wants to paint him. He took off his beanie earlier, and his dark hair is mussed, almost like bedhead, and for a moment Sansa gives in to the urge to pretend he is hers, to pretend they are lovers and she is taking her boyfriend home for the weekend. It is a sick, self-indulgent fantasy; it is pathetic and she knows it.  _All the good ones are gone._ But for the moment it feels so good, to have that beam of hope in the midst of the pouring rain. 

But she cannot maintain that illusion and say what she says next, so she looks away and gives it up, though it pains her to let it go. She's always been one to get caught up in her own fantasies. 

"It, um," she begins, swallowing the last bite of lemon square, "it was what I always imagined wearing to my engagement party. But, since _that's_ not happening any time soon," she adds with a sardonic laugh, "Margaery might as well have it."

"Oh." Gendry clearly is at a loss. She has revealed too much; she is transported directly back to that moment in the British Museum, when she felt naked before him—and then to that moment later in the Hereford Arms, when they brushed against each other and he looked back at her and it almost looked like he wanted to kiss her, almost looked like he was thinking about it, about kissing her and more. His arm had been hard against her breast. Her skin prickles with warmth and shame. "What a waste," he suddenly says bluntly, and Sansa's gaze jerks to him in shock.

"A waste?"

He holds her gaze.

"Yeah, it's a waste," he reiterates, still so blunt. This is the sort of strength that is required for dating Arya, she thinks again. Gendry's normally so pleasant, so mild, that it is easy to forget that he _must_ , in dating Arya, be a force in his own right. "You should have saved it for yourself."

"Well, like I said, it's not—"

"—Oh, _stop._ " He takes another lemon square. "Arya always tells me you have a gift-giving complex; now I'm starting to see it."

"Well, _you're_ the one who brought me lemon squares and—and sent me a llama card."

Her tone is forcibly casual; she maintains Gendry's gaze. She watches a muscle leap in his square jaw, watches his left brow arch ever so slightly, in a look that is almost challenging.

_All the good ones are gone. All the good ones are gone._ Gendry is _taken_ , taken by Arya who deserves this man, who deserves the very best, and it is a betrayal on Sansa's part to even think about wanting him.

But for one moment—the rain, the scent of coffee and the scent of his skin, the oddly nostalgic jangle of Radiohead playing distantly beneath the rain, the way his hair looks all tousled, the way his burning blue eyes seem to set her ablaze—oh, no.

She watches his throat move as he swallows and looks away, stares ahead.

"The glitter bit made me think of you," he admits. "Glitter on a llama; for fuck's sake." He scoffs.

But then the rain has let up, and the moment has passed.

So they keep on driving, and they leave that moment by the side of the road somewhere north of Cambridge. 

 


	3. Act III: Hallway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, I didn't want this to end. This was so much fun to write. I meant for this to be much shorter but it just kept growing and I could not stop. Thanks to everyone for reading.

Robb and Margaery's engagement party is what Pinterest boards and daydreams are made of. Margaery is ethereal in Sansa's dress and she floats about the party in subtly-glimmering pale blue. Robb's handsome face shines with happiness and champagne.

Gendry and Sansa only speak once, when they both go into the Starks' gleaming kitchen for more alcohol at the same time, by accident. 

(They have been avoiding each other since they arrived.) 

In the golden light of the kitchen, they offer uncomfortable smiles as they each realize it is too late to turn around. Gendry gestures for Sansa to go ahead of him, to the cooler with the bottles of champagne and the beers.

"No, after you," Sansa waves him on, not looking at him. She's always polite. She has changed into a tailored navy dress for the party, a dress that even Gendry can tell is in defiant opposition to the dress she made for Margaery, and he cannot help but feel defensive on her behalf. He cannot put it into words just yet, but he will later realize that he is not actually all that happy for Robb and Margaery: what have they done to earn this moment of joy?

What of Sansa, and her private suffering? He does not know what has happened to her but he knows that _something_ did; he knows she has suffered. It is an inescapable truth that life is not fair, and one that he learned young and learned well, but part of him still stubbornly seeks some sign that suffering is rewarded, that happiness can be earned. He is almost completely a realist, but he's been through too much to entirely relinquish the tiny hope that, someday, your struggles will all have been worth it, because that tiny hope, hidden though it may be, is the only way to get through it.

(He does not root for the people who have an easy life. He does not want to hear about their triumphs; he does not care.)

"No, you go ahead," Gendry insists, and she bites her lip and bends over to reach into the cooler. Gendry holds his breath and carefully averts his eyes. He hears her pour herself another glass of champagne. As she leaves the kitchen, gleaming hair twisted over one shoulder to reveal her back, he cannot help but note that her dress is not fully zipped; there is about an inch left unzipped at the top.

He does not let himself breathe again until she is gone. He tells himself he probably just needs to have sex with Arya again. It has been a very long time, after all. What once felt like blindly, helplessly running down a hill now feels like the most precarious arranging of cards. He had thought it might happen on the night Arya volunteered Sansa to drive him, but after the tension that night, she went to bed early and he "accidentally" fell asleep on the sofa, listening to De La Soul. Maybe they just need to have sex again.

 _Yeah, that's right, you arsehole,_  he thinks to himself as he uncaps a Guinness with swift motions.  _You just need to shag Arya, and that will fix everything. Stupid prat._

Gendry gets sloshed with Jon (who gets sloshed so easily; it truly is just absurd) and Theon (whose primary objective always seems to be to get sloshed) and they laugh and argue about football until the wee hours. It is not until four in the morning that Gendry finally drops into bed beside Arya, his stomach churning and his head pulsing with the promise of a hangover, that he realizes he is positively brimming with a rage that is beyond his own ability to move past, to forget. It has grown too great.

Arya's sheets smell like dust and her skin; her bedroom is filled with her various sports trophies (she became a black belt by age thirteen and is posed, smiling, with her curly-haired instructor in one picture; she was captain of her fancy girls' boarding school's football team) and pictures of the happy, easy life she has led.

He thinks of Robb's shining handsome face, and the way the room lit up with affectionate laughter as he went down on one strong, sculpted knee (because Robb never skips leg day, even with his busy job). He thinks of how Robb presented the florid canary diamond ring to Margaery, a ring that Gendry will never, ever be able to afford...

As the room begins to turn blue with dawn he realizes it is jealousy, not rage, and he thinks of the way Margaery's dress floated about her slim form, and he wonders if Sansa is also sick with this same jealousy: this caustic, acidic, vitriolic agony. He thinks of the way she could not look at him in the kitchen, and he thinks of how her face looked in the car, at  _that_  moment, the moment he will never forget.

(He had glanced at Sansa covertly as everyone had clapped for the handsome couple, just to see how she was handling this moment, this moment in which another woman wore her dress and lived her dream. Sansa had been smiling and clapping loudest of them all. Gendry had swallowed his feelings, and clapped too, and considered that no one—no one—was as good of a liar as Sansa.)

(And then she had glanced at him, as though sensing his gaze. Across the Starks' posh living room their eyes had met once more in a look that made him realize some things, made his most private and desperate fears seem on display, and she'd looked away hastily, her hair swinging with the movement.)

He gets up, dry-mouthed and nauseated, to get a glass of water at dawn. The house is still quiet and will be for hours; he is not the only one who overindulged. When he enters the kitchen, Sansa is just leaving through the side door, clad in running gear. At the sound of his footsteps, she pauses.

Across the kitchen, they regard each other, as Gendry realizes he is only wearing his boxers and desperately wishes he had thought to put on at least a tee shirt. The moment is surreal; Gendry wonders if he is even awake. Sansa is looking back at him over her shoulder, her brows drawn together.

"Are you alright?" He can barely hear her, she speaks so softly. It is an odd thing to ask; by all accounts he had perhaps too much fun and should be merely sleepy and happily hungover, but he knows she is not asking about the hangover. He looks away.

He is not alright.

"Yeah," he wrenches out. "Have a good run." He looks away as he hears the door shut.

That afternoon, Gendry and Arya take the train back to London together. Sansa drives back with Jon and Theon, with Theon ludicrously folded into the back seat of the Mini Cooper like a praying mantis. Gendry wonders if either man has made a playlist for the drive. He decides he hates them both, and then feels ridiculous and ashamed for it.

He blames it on the hangover.

The train ride home is gloomy and resentful, and when Gendry and Arya get back to their flat, they have the worst fight they have ever had.

They say the worst things they can each think of; they hurl their words like knives at the places that hurt the most. Arya throws a dish, and Gendry kicks the wall so hard that a frame falls and the glass shatters. It is a fight without honor, without friendship, without any of the generosity or patience that marked the start of their relationship. That well has long since dried up, and the cruelty that they fling at each other is matchless and snarling, petty and sadistic. Gendry cannot even pinpoint how it began but it ends with him leaving in a fit of blinding rage and staying for a week with Jon, who is currently single and therefore has no girlfriend to protest to Gendry staying over.

(There's also Theon, who will probably always be single, but as fun as Theon is, Gendry just cannot.)

One week later, though, Gendry and Arya are reunited in a fit of passion in a club in Soho. It is a chance meeting (but not chance at all; it is entirely calculated by their friends), and what happens is an inevitability that Gendry has expected since the moment Arya flung that dish. Panting and sweating, limbs tangled in the loo of the club, with filthy tiles sticking damply to Gendry's back and the throb of dubstep around them, Arya breathlessly demands that he come back to her, and he obeys.

(He knows how this will go.)

It takes two more rounds of this: of fights that bloom out of nowhere like mushrooms, of weary yet rage-filled nights on Jon's sagging couch as Gendry recounts all of the shitty things they have said to each other (the sort of things they never, ever would have said to each other before), of drunken, impulsive, self-indulgent reunions that only lead to further ruin...

They each know what they are doing, but the rush of relief when they furiously fuck is so much better than the feeling of emptiness that they'll have to do it some more before they can acknowledge that all they're doing is giving themselves black eyes.

They attend Robb and Margaery's wedding together, their anger toward each other simmering beneath the surface. Gendry watches Robb kiss his bride and thinks of his father—a man he has never met, a man who refused to marry his mother and who refused to be a part of Gendry's life, a man who had no interest in families or responsibility or fatherhood—and wonders if he is, against all of his wishes and all of his intentions, turning into his father after all, with this life of instability, of doing what he knows is not best for himself.

(Sansa is the maid of honor. She is wearing a dress she made; it is never explicitly stated that she made it, but Gendry recognizes Sansa in every stitch, and he is surprised when he realizes it. He _knows_ her, and he does not know how or when it happened.)

(The dress is the palest mint, covered in careful embroidery, and is as girly and frothy as the dress she made for Margaery. Gendry wants to tell her it's beautiful, wants to tell her it's another work of art, but he isn't sure what he means by it. Gripped by the possibility of turning into his worst nightmare—a dishonest, selfish, and self-destructive man—Gendry does not speak to her even once, though it seems that their eyes are constantly meeting, that he is constantly righting himself from the glancing blow of her gaze. She _knows_ him, too, and he does not know how or when it happened.)

In the aftermath of the wedding, another fight, blistering and acidic, occurs, prompted by Gendry's resentment and Arya's defensiveness. And Gendry realizes that it is this—not the secret longing for Sansa; not the lack of a wedding ring; not any of the things that he thought—that is making him into a dishonest, selfish, and self-destructive man. 

This is not the sort of man he will be.

He has always wanted to be an honest man, and he has always wanted to be a good man. So he must do the right thing. He has loved Arya for ten years and he has been friends with her for longer, and now he sees that he must be a friend, not a boyfriend or lover or husband, to this person with whom he has constructed a life.

"We need to stop this, Arya," he says on their final night. "I think we're done now, yeah?"

Arya is sitting on the bed, facing away from him, and Gendry stands in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe, weakened by their fight. The walls of their bedroom seem to still quiver with their shouts. He watches her shoulders tense, once, with a stifled sob. His heart breaks for his friend even as his blood burns with rage toward her; he is still so, so angry. "We're not making this work anymore. And you know it."

He watches her let out a long breath, watches her slender, lean body sag with what they both know is relief. Because Arya cannot surrender—this woman of black belts and arguments and more wild strength in her left hand than he's got in his whole body—but Gendry can.

Thus he lays down his sword so that she does not have to. Thus he quietly finds a new place to live—and unfortunately ends up living with Hot Pie, because London's fucking expensive—and he quietly moves his things out while she's at work. Thus he quietly moves on with his life, carefully reconstructing it without the explosive presence of Arya.

Six months later, she calls him up.

He is in the shop, working on his latest piece, and his mobile is in his back pocket and on vibrate. He is blasting Nas and almost does not notice the vibration. When he finally does feel it, he's not sure if he wants to pick up—he doesn't want drama anymore; it never feels half as good as you want it to and it always costs twice as much—but he decides to anyway. Once upon a time, Arya was his best friend, after all.

 _Your luck low_  
_I didn't know 'til I was drunk though_

"Arya."

He is slightly out of breath as he turns off the music.

"Gendry." Arya's tone is sharp, loud, like it is when she's about to admit a weakness. "Listen. I don't wanna be with you anymore, or anything weird like that, but can we still be friends?"

He slumps. He laughs. This moment is so utterly Arya, in so many ways. He rubs at his face, pushes away the sweat trickling down his forehead.

"I dunno, Arya." He will be an honest man. And this is honesty: he doesn't know if they can still be friends. He misses his best friend but he does not miss his ex-girlfriend. "Is this even possible?"

"Yes, of course it's possible. We're not fourteen," Arya says impatiently with a huff. "I don't like anyone as much as I like you, and besides, I need a friend." Her voice almost—almost—breaks. "Also, I'm seeing someone anyway, so you don't have to be worried."

He already knows this. Hot Pie, Jon, and Theon have all informed him separately of Arya's new man: long-haired and slender-limbed, Jaqen is the lead singer of some punk band called the Faceless Men. Jon reassures him that they're garbage; Theon reminds Jon he is tone-deaf and therefore would not know; Hot Pie unhelpfully says that he's gorgeous. Apparently he and Arya cannot get enough of each other.

Gendry sighs, and mops his face again. Sweat stings his eyes.

"Will I regret this?" he asks her. He runs his fingers along the surface of his latest piece. It will be featured in his next show.

He anonymously sent Sansa one of the invite cards.

He still doesn't know what he meant by it. 

"No. I promise." Her voice goes softer for a moment. "I'm not in love with you anymore and I realized I actually haven't been for years—"

(He feels the same way but it still stings; he still mouths  _'fuck you, too'_  to the mobile)

"—but I love you, like a friend. You should be in my life. I miss you at pub nights and in group texts. You're the missing piece. You make Jon less broody, you make Robb laugh even when he's pissed off at Theon, you make Theon back off... Also, you're the only one of us who actually gets Sansa—"

His heart leaps into his throat; his skin turns hot and prickly. He knocks over a stand of tools and it clatters and clangs and makes him jump out of his skin.

"—What? I don't—"

"—Shut up. Anyway, you need to come back into my life." She pauses. "Please."

And that's how he agrees to the next pub night. Gendry rings off and turns the music up as loud as it will go, so that he cannot hear his own hopes, so that he drowns out any thoughts of Sansa, and he works, he creates, until he can no longer move.

* * *

Six months after Robb and Margaery's wedding, Sansa's sewing room is filled with dresses and Sansa is filled with despair.

She cannot stop sewing. It started the night after Margaery and Robb's engagement party, when she returned home and could not face the silence of her life, and has continued in a hurricane of creativity that rips her apart and puts her back together with each dress.

She ran her marathon. This year, however, she has not made a resolution. She has just sewn, and sewn, and sewn. She has prayed, each night as she sews and sews and sews, that this will be the thing that fixes her. And with every new sketch her hope rises, and then—inexplicably—is dashed with every finished dress. With each dress she opens a vein and pours herself into it, and she cannot protect herself from the pain of finishing another creation, of letting go of another rising, hopeful prayer.

She wishes she could tell Gendry about it, but by the time she works up the courage and decides to confess this cycle of creation and despair, he and Arya have ended things, and he has slipped out of her life. The loss is profound, and only adds to the sense of hopelessness that pervades her life after every finished dress.

There is no one in her life who knows or cares what Margaery's dress meant to her; there is no one in her life who understands why she is making dresses at all. There is no one in her life who will make playlists for long drives with her, who will look to her in a crowded room and know the precise moment her heart is breaking.

(Because after all, she can never forget the moment that he looked at her at Robb and Margaery's engagement party. It was like she was a shell he alone had bothered to so lovingly prise open; it was like her heart was a caged animal that he had gently, patiently coaxed from its rattling cage. He had recognized her moment of pain, all blood and broken glass, and had therefore recognized her.)

(That look of empathy, fleeting and half-hidden though it was, rebuilt her. Her blood had turned to hope and Sansa had been able to look back at Margaery wearing her dress and feel that, perhaps, there might still be things worth waiting for, things worth wishing for. And then she had found herself sewing, furiously, stitching her hopes and romances and fantasies into every dress.)

So she sews.

 _It's like you're trying to punish yourself, or something_ , she thinks every time that she blinks at the kitty-clock on her wall, and then she goes back to sewing some more. This isn’t punishment—not the way that her resolutions were—but it is so much more painful, and she is not sure why. She thinks of how Gendry had looked on the morning after the engagement party, his body taut with something like rage, and she wonders if he is in pain too. 

Dr Varys prescribes her antidepressants that make her mouth dry and her eyes throb, and Sansa floats through her life. She does not tell anyone any of this, because she does not know how to speak of it. She buys flowers for her kitchen and sews faerie tales into her dresses and redecorates her home all over again and drowns herself in beauty.

"I'm sewing," she argues with Dr Varys, who simply smiles infuriatingly like he always does. She is trying to show that she's moving forward, that she's making progress.

"But still not dating," he observes slyly.

 _But all the good ones are gone,_ she thinks. She leaves Dr Varys' office and has to walk through Bloomsbury, and she finds herself passing by the British Museum, hands shoved in the pockets of her cornflower-blue coat. She pauses, letting the damp wind toy with her hair. It is a Wednesday evening. She wonders if Gendry still goes every Saturday. Part of her is tempted to try to run into him, just for the chance to meet those eyes once more, and feel what it felt like to be looked at by someone who understands you. Part of her wonders if she was in love with him or in just love with the idea of him.

 _Still,_ she thinks, turning away from the British Museum, _there was love there_. And as painful as it is, something about this seems good. Maybe there was a point to it all.

When she gets home, an invite to Gendry's next exhibition is in the post. She stands in her darkened foyer, holding the card. _He sent them to everyone he knows, probably,_ she tells herself, and she hangs it on her refrigerator. The llama card he sent her, so many months ago, is still on her refrigerator too, and she is abruptly, inexplicably shaken to her core.

 _It's like you're trying to punish yourself, or something_ , he had said to her.

And, _what a waste,_ he had said.

She doesn't realize she is crying until she feels her mascara stinging her eyes. What a waste. She suddenly cannot breathe. What a waste. The llama card and exhibition invite blur before her; she turns away from them and tries to blink away her tears, and her perfectly-designed kitchen turns silver and then disappears before her. What a waste.

Was it a waste for her to be in love with Gendry? A waste of hope and pain? Is it a waste for her to make these dresses, a relentless circle of hope and pain? She does not know.

But this is not her turning point: her turning point comes weeks later. As with all turning points, she does not know it is coming. She does not know that her heart has been preparing for it, so slowly, so secretly, so that she does not sense it, so that she cannot sabotage it.

Her turning point happens in Liberty: this is perhaps her most favorite place in the world. She feels more at home here than anywhere else in the world, surrounded by quirky art and glittering couture, immersed in fantasies brought to life with fabric and jewels and ink. She often simply wanders through when she's in the area, clutching a latte and running her hands along the fabrics. She feels at peace here; she feels safe here. She wonders if this is what propels Gendry to go to the British Museum every Saturday and stare, in secret, at a thing he has stared at hundreds of times before.

Instead of trying to run into Gendry at the British Museum—it is time to stop punishing herself—Sansa goes to Liberty on Saturday. She has been experimenting with sewing blouses lately, and on impulse she decides to wear one out. It is in the same style as her dresses: embroidered to the point of texture, and made of fabrics inspired by ballet and faerie tales. This one is pale as a pearl and glimmers subtly with silvery threads and the tiniest beads, its short sleeves made of stitched tulle. It is inspired by _Swan Lake_ ; she listened to Tchaikovsky’s music as she sewed it. As she walks to Liberty with her earbuds in, she listens to _Swan Lake_ again, and the world around her seems to glimmer with promise and romance.

It is warm in Liberty so she leaves her coat open as she strides through the jewelry department, on her way to the stairs up to the couture. Liberty has recently acquired a line that she has always admired, and she is eager to feel the textures and take in the colors in person.

“Oh my god. Um, sorry, excuse me—miss?"

Sansa halts just before the wide mahogany staircase, and turns around. A young woman with waist-length blonde hair—she can't be more than twenty-five—is gazing at Sansa with her green eyes aglow. Her indulgent boyfriend stands behind her, tall, dark, and handsome. They could be on the cover of _Vogue_ together; they could be painted into any love story that has ever been written. For a moment Sansa reels with longing, but as always, she puts it aside. " _Where_ did you get your top? It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” she breathes, and Sansa feels herself flush.

"Oh," she fumbles, and is too stunned to consider lying, "I—well, I made it."

The woman stares at her, dumbfounded, and Sansa feels absurd, standing there with her latte and this woman staring at her. She waits for the woman to pay her some generic compliment, but she remains speechless as she gazes at Sansa's blouse. Just to break the uncomfortable silence, Sansa finds herself continuing. “It’s, um, embroidered with scenes from _Swan Lake_ ,” she adds, stepping closer, and the woman gasps and rushes to meet her, taking the hem of the blouse and examining it with almost spiritual reverence.

“It is _perfect_ ,” she says in a low, emotional voice. "Oh my god, it's _so_ romantic. You ought to go into bridal. I’ve been hunting for wedding dresses and have looked at, like, thousands, and they’re all the same thing over and over again and they’re so boring. I would kill to wear a dress made of this.”

The woman relinquishes her blouse’s hem, and steps back with a sheepish smile, embarrassed by her actions. "Sorry," she adds, as her boyfriend—no, fiance—laughs lovingly behind her. "I suppose I got a bit excited. Trystane has had to put up with this since he proposed."

Sansa almost, almost smiles and says thank you. She almost walks away.

But then she thinks of the room full of dresses that no one will ever wear—that no one will ever even know about. She thinks of all of the heartache and hope embroidered into each dress. She thinks of Gendry turning to her in the car, with those burning blue eyes and that will of steel, and the rain coming down in sheets around them as he shattered her with just a few words.

She thinks, _what a waste._

"Actually," she begins, her tongue thick and her heart pounding, "I mainly do dresses. I have some pictures on my mobile, if you want to see."

* * *

When Sansa finally gets home, she goes straight to her sewing room full of dresses, and bursts into ugly, happy tears: tears that leave her shoulders shaking, tears that make her makeup run, tears that leave her throat and eyes and heart raw.

She has an appointment to take the woman's measurements—her name is Myrcella—next week so that she can make her wedding dress.

And suddenly the cycle of despair seems worth it, suddenly it seems like every moment of heartache was necessary. Suddenly it does not seem like being perfect is what she wants after all. And in a fit of hope (because this is both the best and worst of her: Sansa always has hope) Sansa downloads every dating app that there is.

She signs up for all of them.

She consults Margaery on which photos to use of herself, and within an hour, she finds someone on Bumble: his name is Dickon, he is a year younger than her, he works in hedge fund management, and in his profile picture he is playing golf at St. Andrew's. He is tall and handsome; his profile is entirely, utterly unoriginal but he seems nice enough. He looks vaguely familiar, but she cannot place where she might know him.

Two nights later, she has a date with him.

She wears one of the blouses she made: it is the deepest rose and is beaded with dozens of scenes from faerie tales, though from afar the designs merely appear like patterns. Arya happens to call as Sansa is getting ready.

"Wait a minute. You're dating?!" Arya yells over the phone, as Sansa stands before her beloved Anthropologie mirror. When she moves, the blouse subtly catches the light. "Holy shit. This is a big deal. It's been, what, a few years now, right?"

"We'll see," Sansa hedges. It is the first date that she has been on in over ten years.

"Well, good luck. Text me if you need a quick escape," Arya says. "Oh, and by the way, the reason I called is that you need to come to pub night this week."

Sansa is not thinking about pub night; she is thinking about applying a lip stain that matches her top perfectly, and enjoying feeling so girlish and silly again after so very long. "Because-I-sort-of-maybe-invited-Gendry-to-come," Arya confesses in a rush, and Sansa drops the tube of lip stain.

"G-gendry?" She is still standing before her mirror so she bears witness to her own shock—and her own subtle, implicit betrayal of Arya, because the faintest hope sets her eyes aglow. She hears Arya let out a long sigh.

"Yeah. I _know_ , it's probably stupid, but I wanna be friends with him again. He belongs in my life. And I know it was the right decision, and I feel good about it. And I know I don't have feelings for him anymore, so it’s not like I need you to, like, police my behavior. But it’s still a lot, and it's going to be hard, and…”

She trails off, and Sansa realizes that this is the greatest gift that Arya has ever given her.

 _I need you there_ , are the words she does not say. Sansa has to blink away tears, and swallows. She is a compulsive giver, it's true—Gendry's assessment was incisive and accurate—but it's only because this is what she so desperately seeks. Arya _needs_ her.

And thus, even though she does not know how she feels about seeing Gendry, Sansa agrees to come to pub night. When she rings off, she dons a navy peplum coat and stands before her refrigerator, staring at the invite to Gendry’s next exhibition. Whatever her feelings for him might have been, Gendry is the only person she wants to tell about the dress she is making for Myrcella. Gendry is the only person who will understand.

But she must tread cautiously. She must not give herself away. She must not ever show how she feels (felt, _felt_ ) about Gendry. Because Sansa is no fool; Arya and Gendry will reunite, and this is just the first step on that path.

Sansa throws out the llama card, at long last. Arya needs her, and she will be there for her, as her sister inevitably reunites with this man that has changed Sansa's life. To hope for anything would be silly.

(Oh, but she always has hope. She's such a silly fool.)

She meets Dickon at Dalloway Terrace in Bloomsbury and tries not to notice that the British Museum is not far from here. She tries not to think of Gendry, of pub night, of the invite hanging on her refrigerator, of the llama card in her rubbish bin. _All the good ones,_ she reminds herself, _are gone._

Or at least, _that_ good one is gone.

Dickon, broad-shouldered and brown-haired, is taller than everyone else and is waiting for her at the entrance, beneath red-tinged vines. He is dressed stylishly, in clothing that she recognizes as a few nicer high street designers, and his classically handsome face brightens when he recognizes her. "Sansa, right?" he asks, uncertainly, and then tells her she looks lovely. He holds the door open for her, and pulls her chair out for her, and they order wine and then dinner.

They have absolutely nothing to talk about.

Dinner drags on endlessly; the few bits of conversation that they manage to eke out are agony.

(She tells him she made her blouse. “Wow. Why?” he asks, genuinely confounded by the concept. When she explains, he nods seriously, and has nothing to say.)

"Well, this was nice," she forces out after dinner, because she is polite, as they are leaving Dalloway Terrace. It is raining, and Dickon hastily opens a vintage Burberry umbrella—he comes from old money, that much is clear—over her head, as choreographed as a perfume advert.

"I'm sorry, I'm really bad at first dates," he confesses suddenly, and her heart twists with empathy as she meets his sherry-colored eyes.

"Me too," she admits.

"Oh, no, you're not bad at all, it was my fault,” he reassures her hastily. "Look, can I see you again?"

It has been so long—so, so long—since she has been pursued. Sansa thinks of that moment in the car with Gendry, when the rain rushed down around them and those burning blue eyes saw her. She lets it go. She’s been holding on to something that has never and will never belong to her.

"I'm bad at second dates," she begins, watching his face fall, "so forgive me if our second date is awkward, too," she finishes quickly, and he lets out a laugh of relief, his breath clouding in the air, and she swallows the feeling of slight disappointment.

* * *

The Hereford Arms is overcrowded but Sansa still immediately spots Arya and the others in the back of the bar, clumped around a table like always. Arya is at the corner, sandwiched between Jaqen and Gendry, and Sansa thinks, _this is how it starts_. Gendry is angled toward Arya, away from her. This is how it starts. Jon and Theon are on the other side, playing cards. Judging by the look on Theon's face, he is losing. It's too warm in the pub, so Sansa unbuttons her trench, conscious of how her blouse catches the light.

"Sansa!" Arya calls across the pub, waving.

Over the sea of heads, Sansa meets Gendry's eyes, and a jolt of hope sets her aglow before she hastily dampens it and her heart clenches with longing.

(She knows how this will go.)

He looks _good_ ; she forgot just how good-looking he was. He's taken his beanie off and his hair is wild, and she is reminded of their drive up to Harrogate, and how his hair looked in that moment. He's wearing a grey jumper with the sleeves pushed up, revealing his forearms corded with muscle, and it stretches across his shoulders so beautifully. Even from here she can see the hint of a new tattoo creeping up his neck, out of the collar. She wonders what it is.

Dickon is handsome too, she reminds herself. But somehow the way his shirt pulls at his shoulders does not make her chest throb; his hair, though lovely—perhaps objectively lovelier than Gendry's—does not make her fingers twitch with the urge to run them through it. She does not know why she wants to touch Gendry so badly, why the sight of him moves her and why the sight of Dickon does not.

(Okay, fine. She does know why.)

(She asked Dickon to meet her here later tonight. Maybe that will help.)

She weaves her way through the patrons, and too late realizes that the only seat is next to Gendry.

"Took you long enough," Arya says. "Gendry, move over."

It's a narrow bench; Gendry scoots toward Arya and nods to the vacant spot beside him, then looks up at her and her mouth goes dry. She has always felt like a silly little girl around him. She looks away, because when she's looking at those eyes she can't think—she forgot the effect he had on her; she's out of practice hiding it—and clumsily, awkwardly shuffles onto the bench beside him. Their elbows brush, and he clears his throat. He smells like smoke and leather and detergent and musk; she will not inhale his scent. She forces herself to think of Dickon, who smells like Bleu de Chanel and hair product and mint.

"Long time no see," Gendry observes beside her. He's got a near-finished pint before him, and he toys with the glass. Sansa forces herself to meet his eyes again, because to not do so would be weird, and she promised herself she wouldn't be weird about this.

He's too close, though. He is even closer than he was in the car that day; even closer than when their hands brushed in her sewing room. His burning blue eyes flick down to her top, then back up again. "Nice shirt. You make it?"

His voice is low, like it's a secret, and it is, and she does not know how he knows it's a secret but it makes this so much harder.

God but when you connect with someone, every glance is suddenly part of a language that you did not know you spoke, that you did not know anyone else spoke, and now you've found the one familiar face in a universe of people who are alien to you. It's like when she heard _that_ particular moment in Swan Lake for the first time and her heart went, _oh_. Every time she listens to _that_ moment in Swan Lake, her heart still does that same thing, that same clench of longing, so that she must rewind and listen to it over and over again until the notes are abstract. It's like every moment in her favorite faerie tales, the moment that seems written just for her, the moment that makes her sink down and clutch the book to her heart, shocked anew every single time that someone has printed the words written on her heart.

It makes every step you have taken seem measured and directed; it gilds the world around you with purpose and delight. You feel less like this jumble of blood and broken thoughts and, suddenly, finally, like a person. You cannot believe, after all the stories, that this moment truly does exist: that it is possible to meet a person's eyes and, so fleetingly, know the methods of the universe, and, so fleetingly, know that the thoughts that you think are not merely cast off into the universe but instead travel through space and stars to another person.

"I—" she begins, when she recovers, but she is interrupted.

"Are you drinking?" Arya calls across them. " _Please_ don't say you're on a diet again."

"No, I'm not," Sansa promises. "Hold on, let me get a drink."

"I'll come with." Gendry tosses back the rest of his pint. "Been nursing this for too long anyway."

* * *

(Crap. He forgot how to be normal around her; maybe he never knew. He only got through it in the past by pretending she did not exist, by physically turning from those eyes that have seen his soul, that have taken it from its protective case. But he is good at keeping secrets when he needs to, so he meets her eyes as though she does not bring him to his knees.)

(Wait—why is he keeping this secret?)

(He feels Arya looking at him, feels Jon and Theon looking at him a little too shrewdly, and he remembers why he has been keeping this secret.)

* * *

Every movement feels like she is on stage; Sansa awkwardly climbs back off the bench and unsteadily walks to the bar, knowing that Gendry is following and hoping that there's nothing stuck to her coat. There's a crowd by the bar, all waiting to be served, and she realizes they will have a while to wait.

She steels herself and turns back to Gendry; her shoulder brushes his hard chest and they each step back quickly, murmuring apologies.

"Looks like we'll be here a while. Anyway," she continues finally, "yes, I did make the blouse. I wanted to tell you all about it, actually, since you're partly to blame."

She meets his eyes like it's nothing.

"Can I touch it?" Gendry asks, surprising her. She nods mutely, and he steps forward, and takes the hem in his fingertips—just the way Myrcella did. One knuckle grazes the tender swath of flesh just above the waistband of her jeans, and her skin prickles all over. "Damn," he marvels, shaking his head. She watches him trace his thumb over the embroidery. She does not breathe; she does not move. "You've gotten good. This is way more complicated than the engagement dress."

He drops the hem at last and steps back again. This moment is meaningless to him, she tells herself. He probably did not even realize he grazed her skin. He is in love with Arya, and this means nothing to him. She shakes herself out of it.

"I haven't told anyone else, so don't tell anyone," she begins, "but I've been making dresses obsessively, for months. I suppose I took your advice to heart," she admits, so measured a reference to so colossal a moment. "But I didn't think anything would come of it. I was just sort of doing it for myself. I recently started on blouses, too, and I wore one out, and got asked about it...Long story short, I've been asked to make this woman's wedding dress. I don't even know her, but I ran into her at Liberty—it's this store—"

"—I know it," Gendry interrupts. Sansa looks at him in surprise, and he rubs his new tattoo again, a hint of a flush on his cheeks. He laughs. "I, um, got your llama card from there. Anyway, go on. You were in Liberty..."

Why would Gendry ever go into Liberty? She refuses to hope, refuses to read into it, but oh, she always hopes; she cannot help herself. It sets her ablaze, and between that and the fact that she is finally, finally telling someone this enormous secret, Sansa feels her heart begin to pound as happiness courses through her.

"...and this woman stopped me, wanting to know where I'd got my top. I told her I'd made it, and she went on about how she would love to have a wedding dress like it. So I...just decided to go for it," she confesses in a rush. "So I'm actually doing it. I'm actually making this woman's wedding dress. She's coming to my flat next week so I can take her measurements. This is actually happening."

* * *

Gendry did not mean to touch her; it was entirely an accident. He shoves his hands in his pockets, his knuckles still tingling. Her skin was so warm. He feels drunk, and the way she is smiling at him is decidedly not helping.

(Arya says she has been dating, and has reminded him that Sansa has not dated in a very long time. _A weirdly long time,_ she had said.)

(He has not told her that he had always noticed. He has not told her that he has always wondered.)

(Why is he keeping this secret?)

* * *

She cannot help herself from beaming at him, and he regards her with a half-smile. "I've been wanting to tell you about it, but..." she trails off, reluctant to mention his breakup with Arya—particularly as she is certain that tonight is the start of his reunion with Arya, particularly as she is certain that he is in love with Arya. She will not intrude. He is taken.

"—You could have texted me. Or called." Gendry shrugs, hands in his pockets. "I mean, I guess you're loyal to Arya. But like... I talked to Jon and Theon even after Arya and I broke up. We're friends, too."

His tone is so casual but his gaze is anything but. "But I mean, maybe that's weird," he blusters, waving it off. "I dunno. I consider you my friend, too. I was wondering how you were getting on, with your ...marathons, and all."

"Oh, that. I did run one. But I kept thinking about what you said..."

She wants to tell him that he has changed her life. She wants to tell him that what he did for her with a few words and a few glances was more than what years of therapy have ever done for her. She wants to tell him that he has meant far more to her than he can possibly comprehend.

She wants, more than anything, some sign from the universe that she has not imagined this connection between them. He is holding her gaze, and the words are on the tip of her tongue, but then—

"What'll you be having?" the barman asks, and they both jump slightly.

"Sauvignon blanc," she says, knowing she'll get made fun of by Theon for it. Gendry orders a Doom Bar, and insists on paying for her drink.

"No, seriously—you ought to celebrate," he insists, waving her wallet away. "So was it that top?" he nods toward her blouse.

"No, it was one inspired by Swan Lake." She takes out her mobile and brings up a picture she has taken of it, as Myrcella asked for pictures to show her friends. Gendry takes her mobile and zooms in on the image.

"Oh, _sick_ , it's all dancers and stuff," he observes, squinting as he studies it. "It does look a bit like a wedding dress, actually," he adds, still studying it. "Fuck, that detail though, it's really just incred—oh, sorry, you got a text." Abruptly, he hands the mobile back to her, his face suddenly blank.

It is from Dickon.

**_cant wait to see u again :) be there in an hour_ **

"Thanks," she stammers, and pockets her mobile. The barman slides their drinks to them, and they each take their drink. Their eyes meet and she wonders if he saw Dickon's text. She wonders why it matters; Gendry is taken.

"Well," he begins with that same half-smile, "here's to making a go of your dresses. Cheers."

She clinks her wine against his beer, and they each take a drink.

"Thanks. But remember; don't tell anyone," she reminds him. Gendry laughs; it's almost a scoff.

"Look, you have dirt on me. Remember the British Museum? So I promise I won't tell."

"Right," she stammers, but he is already turning away from her. This means nothing to him, she reminds herself.

Once they are back at the table, the conversation is general, driven largely by Arya and Theon. Jaqen is quiet, mysterious, and says almost nothing, but Sansa watches Arya glance at him, over and over again, all throughout the night. She watches him murmur things in her sister's ear, things that make Arya flush. Sansa is careful not to look at Gendry for his reaction. She does not want to know.

She texts Dickon; the conversation is utterly banal but it's better than watching Gendry and Arya fall back in love. Her battery begins to drain.

She gets up to use the loo, but really it's just for a moment of peace. Sitting so close to Gendry is impossible; she is hyperaware of everything and can barely focus on the conversation, and moreover, she is hyperaware of how foolish and pointless such anxiety is. Jaqen is an interlude for Arya; Sansa would not be shocked if it is Gendry who ends up in Arya's bed tonight, and not Jaqen.

She stands in the dark, narrow hall outside of the loos and stares at her mobile. Dickon will be here soon. She should be excited about that. Maybe tonight they'll experience some amazing connection; maybe tonight is the start of the great romance of her life. Maybe the first date was just awkward. She puts her mobile away and stares at the opposite wall and tries to breathe through the crushing sense of disappointment that seems inescapable—

"—Oh. Sorry, Sansa." Gendry nearly smacks into her as he rounds the corner. The hall is too narrow and she tries to back up to let him pass. His scent fills her head; she looks away and does not meet his eyes, and presses herself against the wall.

"W-we keep doing this," she tries to joke, but she can't breathe. He's almost past her, but he pauses and then he's looking down at her, and for one moment she looks up at him, sees him swallow, watches him turn away quickly—he turns away like this means something to him too—and then it comes out. "—Wait."

He pauses, looks back at her. His eyes look electric, they're so blue even in the darkness. "I-I meant to tell you earlier—" A dozen things crash on her tongue but she can't seem to say anything; they all twist in her mouth and he is staring at her.

"Yeah?" he prompts, and it almost looks like he's holding his breath but she can't be sure; they're so close that if he turned back he would brush against her again; they're so close that—

"—I really missed you," she finally wrenches out. It is so pitiful; it does not even begin to cover how she feels, what he means to her, what he has done for her, but it's the most raw truth. And it's selfish, and foolish, but worst of all it's vulnerable. She is opening herself up to more pain—

He lets out a ragged breath; he does not look away from her.

"I missed you too," he admits at last. She is still pressed against the wall, and suddenly it seems he is pinning her there, though he does not touch her. She wants him to pin her against the wall. She wants him to kiss her like he missed her.

But then her mobile is ringing. They both jump, slightly, but Gendry is still looking at her, and that look is steel. Neither moves as it continues to ring. It goes to voicemail—then begins to ring again.

Gendry turns away from her. "You'd better get that," he says over his shoulder. "It's probably—what was his name—Dickon?"

And he leaves her there alone in the hall. Trembling, Sansa answers.

* * *

Gendry splashes water on his face and contemplates the cyclical nature of things. He stands there in the loo for a moment, hands braced on the sink. For a moment there, he had thought he might kiss Sansa—had thought she might want him to kiss her.

(Why is he keeping this secret?)

When he comes back into the bar, a tall, broad-shouldered man is standing by their table. His tan coat is impeccably-tailored, the collar popped to reveal that iconic plaid that even Gendry recognizes. He has the same haircut as Robb, and looks like he went to Eton. Sansa is wearing her coat again and stands beside him, flushed. So she's leaving with him, then. Across the bar she glances up and sees Gendry, but Gendry avoids the eye contact and makes his way back to the table.

"Oh, and this is Gendry. Gendry, this is Dickon." Sansa's voice is tightly-controlled. She is an excellent liar, after all. Gendry cannot help but bump into Dickon a little too hard as he goes back to take his seat. They're the same height, but Gendry is confident he could kick his arse in a fight, and then he feels like shit for thinking it. 

(He will not be that sort of man.)

"What's up," he nods to Dickon, barely looking at him. There's some commotion—it turns out Dickon is Sam's younger brother—but Gendry does not care. He feels Arya looking at him, but he avoids her eyes by taking a long swig of beer.

"Anyway, we're off," Sansa is saying loudly. "Have a good night, everyone."

She does not look at Gendry, and he does not look at her. Theon makes an inappropriate joke, and Jon groans, and then in a flash of gleaming hair, Sansa is gone.

"You alright?" Arya asks, poking him in the side. He glances at her, meets her grey eyes that are so familiar to him. She is partly sitting on Jaqen's lap, and he waits to feel something but it cannot touch the way that Sansa leaving with Dickon has made him feel.

"So, that's it then?" he finally gets out. Everyone is looking at him. "Ten years of not dating—it's ten years, I'm pretty sure—all to run off with an empty-headed, poncy... fucking... Burberry model?"

"He _was_ killing it in that coat," Theon agrees unhelpfully. "Why can't I look like that in one of those coats? I always look like a prat in them—"

"—Because you _are_ a prat," Arya cuts in, and then looks back at Gendry. "He's actually really nice, you know, and he's Sam's little brother and Sam never shuts up about how sweet his brother is."

 _Who cares if he's sweet?_ Gendry wonders, and he takes another swig of his beer. Sansa doesn't need sweet. She doesn't need doors held open for her and the basic bunch of red roses and baby's breath on her birthday. She needs to be understood; she needs to be challenged. She needs someone who will not let her tell lies, who will not let her hate herself.

Is this really it, then? Because he knows how this will go: they'll date for six months, with every girl shrieking about how lucky Sansa is when Dickon finally presents her with the same stupid ring that every other woman in Marylebone has. It will happen fast, and then Sansa will be gone.

He has spent so much time telling himself to behave normally around Sansa, has pretended she means nothing to him for so long, that it is reflexive now. He has always been so good at keeping secrets, and he wants someone who uncovers his every secret, who overturns his heart and reads what is written beneath it.

Why is he keeping this secret anymore?

* * *

Sansa and Dickon walk along the sidewalk together, her heels clacking along with the thud of his boots. He looks good. More than good. As they walk, women practically break their necks to get a second look at him. But he does not make Sansa's heart pound.

She thinks, as she walks, of taking the Eurostar to Paris, French dictionary in hand. She thinks of standing in the Saatchi, staring at an installation that means nothing to her. She thinks of finishing her first (and last) marathon. All of these achievements were meant to protect her, to make her seem perfect. If she seems perfect, then nothing can ever hurt her again.

"Alright? You seem quiet," Dickon comments as they stop at a light.

Sansa thinks of the agony of each dress—the rising hope and the crashing despair. She thinks of the euphoria of the moment Myrcella asked her to make her dress. She thinks of how much of a waste it has been to protect her heart, to dampen her hopes. _What a waste._

"Actually, I'm not," she admits, just as the light changes, but she does not walk, and Dickon looks back at her in surprise.

* * *

He knows how this will go. But he's got to at least try. 

(He knows that life is not fair and that sometimes your struggle just gets thrown out into the universe and there's no point to any of it. But he also knows that without struggle, there is no beauty, there is no art.)

Gendry finishes his beer.

"Sorry, gotta go," he says shortly, getting to his feet and pulling on his jacket.

"Where are you going?" Arya demands as he pulls on his beanie, and he hears Theon snort.

"Really? You really don't know?" he asks.

Gendry wants to be an honest man, so he looks back at Arya. His heart is pounding but, after all, this is his best friend.

"I'm going after Sansa," he says calmly, so calmly. Arya swallows.

For the longest moment, they stare at each other, and no one speaks. He knows her so well, knows that she has a thousand and one things to say about this, and he can read them all on her face.

"If you hurt her," Arya finally says, "I will castrate you."

"And I'll disembowel you," Jon puts in.

"And I'll hack your data and ruin your life," Theon adds, just as Arya says, "shut up, Theon, you're not a hacker, you can't even connect your printer."

"I won't do anything to you, don't worry," Jaqen says, but Gendry has already turned away.

* * *

She is ridiculous, she is a fool. She is about to have her heart ripped apart, but—oh, what a waste, to just walk off with Dickon and never try, never even tell Gendry how she really feels. Sansa leaves Dickon—sweet, kind, handsome Dickon, for whom she feels nothing—standing on the sidewalk. She tells him that she has been in love with someone else for years, and apologizes for her behavior.

And then she runs. She goes back to the Hereford Arms first, but Gendry is gone, and the air is electric. She is breathless and everyone is staring at her.

"I—um—where's Gendry?" she blurts out. She waits for confusion, for questions, but Arya speaks at once.

"He left to find you," she says. "You just missed him."

"Oh." She needs to explain to Arya, needs to ask for her forgiveness. "I'm—"

"—Go," Arya says, waving her off. "You'd better hurry. He's got a terrible sense of direction so who _knows_ where he is now."

* * *

Gendry runs along the road, hunting for a sign of gleaming red hair, pushing through groups of revelers and craning his neck. He tries Sansa's mobile, but it goes straight to voicemail.

* * *

Sansa explodes out of the Hereford Arms and looks up and down the road for Gendry, but he is gone. She tries his mobile, but it goes straight to voicemail, and soon, her battery dies.

Sansa hails a black cab back to Marylebone and plans. She'll charge her mobile and text Gendry—no, she'll ring him.

 _He left to find you_ , Arya had said. Her hands won't stop shaking; her ribs ache. She cannot draw a full breath. This rising hope—is it just like with her dresses? Are her hopes about to be dashed; is she about to let go of another romance and watch it float up into the sky?

The cab turns down her street. Sansa reminds herself that every time she's finished a dress and has felt that pain, she's simply started another one. It is a waste to protect herself, because she does not need to.

She pays the cabbie and gets out. She is fishing in her purse for her keys as she walks along the sidewalk. She is rehearsing what she will say to Gendry if he answers his mobile. She is not paying attention, so that when she reaches her front step and looks up and Gendry says, "hey," she gasps and drops her keys.

There he is, standing next to her topiary, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. In this light his eyes almost look silver, and she thinks it must be about to rain.

Her keys are on the ground between them as they stare at each other. Gendry is biting his lip.

"I'll get those—" he begins, crouching down, and she blusters that no, she'll get them, but he's already standing up again and handing them to her. Their fingers brush as her keys clink together, and she clumsily takes the keys from him.

This is her moment. She clutches her keys in her fist until it hurts and stares at him. There are so many things she wants to tell him, needs to tell him. She tried before, in the hall of the Hereford Arms, but she failed, and now this is her chance to tell him what he means to her, to tell him how every time she looks at him she is filled with the thought of every beautiful thing she has ever seen, but instead—

"—I threw out your llama card the other day," she confesses abruptly. Gendry steps down, onto the sidewalk, and now he is before her, looking down at her, and he's almost too close, and she cannot breathe.

"I'll send you another one," he promises.

She does not know what to say. Nothing seems to be quite enough—but he seems to be waiting for something. He is watching her carefully. It begins to rain, and she feels it dot her cheeks.

It is time to rip herself apart. Maybe his words will sew her back together—or maybe she will sew herself back together.

"I've been wanting to tell you about how it feels to make these dresses. Like, I catch myself imagining telling you," she begins. "Because I don't think anyone else would get it. And I've spent all this time—years, actually a decade—trying to protect myself from getting hurt, and now, when I make these dresses, I hurt all the time. And I don't think I would have been able to do it, if you hadn't called me out, when we were driving back home together. I don't know if you remember—"

"—I remember," Gendry interjects softly. The rain is picking up; it's more than a few droplets. He scoffs, looks away. "I've thought about that moment so many times." He pauses. "Well, tried not to think about that moment so many times."

"I can't even tell you what it meant," she says desperately, and then suddenly the air is shimmering with a downpour, and Sansa and Gendry hasten to the poor shelter of her front door as she hastily unlocks it.

They burst into her dark foyer and Gendry quickly shuts the door, shutting out the sound of the rain, and then they are once again faced with each other, breathless and far, far too close.

"I've spent so much time trying to not think about you," Gendry begins. "I used to wish you wouldn't come to my exhibitions because I'd spend weeks afterward thinking about you, and all the things you'd said about my stuff, and how you'd listened to me ramble about it, and how you'd looked, and then I'd feel like crap about it, and then I'd start to anticipate it all over again at the next show, wondering if you'd come, and what you'd say.

"I still have all the birthday cards that you sent me, and I used to wish you wouldn't send them, because literally no one else has ever sent me a birthday card, and I know it sounds stupid—I mean, it's a fucking birthday card, what does it matter?—but it mattered to me. That you thought of me, that you picked them out each year, that you gave me this totally normal thing that no one else had ever given me. So I decided to just pretend you didn't exist, because knowing you exist—" he halts, looks away. "How am I supposed to not think about you?"

(She has told herself that she means nothing to Gendry so many times; she has been so, so wrong.)

She does not know what to say. So she just says what comes to mind.

"I missed you," is all she can utter, her desperation heaving and crashing, and then his eyes are on her, all steel, pinning her in place, and he is moving toward her. His artist's fingers are in her hair as the small of her back hits the narrow console table behind her. This man of secrets and steel and strength and sweetness is so close; she inhales him selfishly.

"I missed you too," he murmurs against her lips. She can hear the rain coming down in sheets outside; she can feel his heart pounding as she places her hands on his chest, the fabric of his jumper rough and his chest hard beneath it. She sinks her fingers into the fabric as he fists his hands in her hair, and his nose brushes hers, and she closes her eyes. She has not been kissed in over ten years; she has been ripped apart, and as he kisses her she is sewn back together.


End file.
